Middle Eastern Realities

‘Clean’ conservatives vs. ‘dirty’ liberals

Rick Moran
Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit has the proof in pictures; conservatives clean up after themselves while liberals let the government take care of their trash.

Hoft has a photo essay that shows the aftermath of the Mall following the 9/12 protests compared to the condition of the same venue following President Obama’s inauguration.

The difference is striking.

Washington Mall after 9/12 protest.

Washington Mall after Obama Inauguration

Is it a legitimate point to be made, that the difference in the condition of the Mall following the two events says something revealing about the two sides?

I don’t see how you can escape it. Without getting into a numbers game (and acknowledging that the inauguration crowd was bigger), it should be obvious that one side takes responsibility for their actions while the other does not. This denotes not only respect for public property, but also it reveals that conservatives have a sense of ownership relating to that property. Owners will care for their property more assiduously than non-owners. Conservatives consider themselves stakeholders in the country, seeing it as their individual concern to make better.

On the other hand, liberals don’t see public property as their concern, but rather that of the government. When everyone owns the land, no one is responsible for it in their calculation. Thoughtless littering is simply a manifestation of their belief that it’s someone else’s job to clean up after me. Not my problem since it’s not my land.

BREAKING: Ayatollah calls for overthrow of Tehran

regime tomorrow.

In an extraordinary development, MEMRI reports that Ayatollah Montazeri, who has been a major critic of the Khomeinist regime, in effect called for a mass uprising to begin tomorrow, Qods Day, when mass demonstrations are put on by the regime. The question is whether Montazeri’s call for other clerics to preach against the regime tomorrow will bring out gigantic protest crowds. The regime cannot stop the annual Qods Day demonstrations without losing face.

According to MEMRI’s translation from Persian,

“In his message, Ayatollah Montazeri came out against the regime, which he said had shed the blood of innocent civilians while committing human rights violations. Throughout history, he wrote, Iran’s senior clerics had come out against the injustices and oppression of tyrannical regimes in Iran, and took pride in always standing up against them and defending the law and the rights of the people. …

Montazeri called on the clerics to declare out loud that they oppose the regime. He said that instead of representing the voice of the people, the regime had brought about a most terrible situation of violence against defenseless men and women and of oppression, to the point of causing their shehada (deaths), in some cases in prison. …

He concluded by saying that the Iranian people is asking why the clerics are not coming out against the oppression and the injustice. … The regime, Montazeri told the clerics, is exploiting you, and your silence makes you its collaborators. “

Nobody knows what will happen tomorrow. Qods Day demonstrations are virtually certain to take place, bringing out hundreds of thousands of people. The regime’s brutal police and enforcers may be outnumbered. This may just be the beginning of the end for Ahmadinejad and his boss, Khamenei.

What the international consequences will be is anybody’s guess, but it is hard to find anything worse than the present regime.

A: It is the worldwide organization of socialist, social democratic and labor parties. It currently brings together 131 political parties and organizations from all continents. Its origins go back to the early international organizations of the labor movement of the last century.* It has existed in its present form since 1951, when it was re-established at the Frankfurt Congress. They are now headquartered in London, England.

* In 1864, representatives of English and French industrial workers founded the International Workingmen’s Association in London. Karl Marx, who was living in London at the time, became the First International’s dominant figure. Marx’s doctrines were revived in the 20th century by Russian revolutionary Vladimir Ilich Lenin, who developed and applied them – and we all know that what was started as a labor movement ended up as the biggest totalitarian/communist state, i.e., the USSR.

Q: What is the Democratic Socialists of America [DSA]?

A: It is the largest socialist organization in the United States, and the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International. Their website is http://www.dsausa.org/dsa.html

Q: What are seven principles behind what the DSA’s calls it’s “Progressive Challenge?”

Never mind their soothing-sounding leftist doublespeak like ‘Environmental Justice’ (whatever that is supposed to mean) or the soft & fuzzy ‘Global Non-Violence’ (a euphemism for unilateral disarmament) — the DSA’s self-declared principle of ‘Economic Redistribution’ clearly shows where these folks are coming from and exactly where they plan to take America.

Q: How many members of the U.S. Congress are also members of the DSA?

A: Seventy!

Q: How many of the DSA members sit on the Judiciary Committee?

A: Eleven: John Conyers [Chairman of the Judiciary Committee], Tammy Baldwin, Jerrold Nadler, Luis Gutierrez, Melvin Watt, Maxine Waters, Hank Johnson, Steve Cohen, Barbara Lee, Robert Wexler, Linda Sanchez [there are 23 Democrats on the Judiciary Committee of which eleven, almost half, are now members of the DSA].

Lead Story

During the campaign season, he attacked John McCain for driving foreign cars. Never mind that among the 18 members of Obama’s auto task force and their staff, only two own American vehicles.

He also unveiled a “Buy American” logo to attack McCain as a hypocrite for embracing Harley Davison motorcycle riders’ support simply because he opposed a federal mandate that the government buy American-made vehicles. As I pointed out last summer, “there’s nothing hypocritical about opposing coercion in taxpayer-funded purchases. Hypocrisy is dissing America First voters while nibbling on Brie at private San Francisco fund-raisers and proclaiming to be embarrassed that Americans don’t speak Spanish –and then plastering the campaign with ‘Buy American’ stickers in the hopes of winning over a demographic you hold in utter contempt.”

As a result of “Buy American” provisions in Obama’s porkulus law, Canadian companies have “retaliated with measures effectively barring U.S. companies from their municipal contracts — the first shot in a larger campaign that could shut U.S. companies out of billions of dollars worth of Canadian projects.”

Now, the tire war is on with China.

Make no mistake: This is not about protecting consumers or American jobs.

One more fun fact: United Steelworkers president Leo Gerard “also serves on the U.S. National Commission on Energy Policy and is a founding board member of the Apollo Alliance, a non-profit public policy initiative for creating good jobs in pursuit of energy independence.”

The White House disclosed late Friday evening that the U.S. will impose stiff tariffs on imported Chinese tires used by millions of Americans. Perhaps President Obama thought he could minimize controversy by releasing the news on a weekend, days ahead of the September 17 deadline and two weeks before he will host Chinese President Hu Jintao at the Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh. But the protectionist signal he has sent in his first major trade-policy decision is unmistakable.

Mr. Obama has applied a previously unused part of the trade law known as Section 421. This allows U.S. industries or unions to seek protection from “surges” of Chinese imports, with a lower burden of proof than normal antidumping or countervailing duty cases. President Bush nixed the four Section 421 petitions that reached his desk, citing the national economic interest.

Domestic lobbies—including unions like the United Steelworkers that supported him during the campaign and filed this case looking for a political favor in return—hoped Mr. Obama would reverse that precedent, and they haven’t been disappointed. Such congressional protectionist stalwarts as Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) and Rep. Sander Levin (D., Mich.) endorsed Friday night’s move. “Today, the President courageously stood up and enforced fair trade rules that will save jobs and help our communities,” crowed Mr. Brown, who had enthusiastically supported the tariff proposal. It hardly matters that the 35% tire tariff is less than the 55% the International Trade Commission recommended. Despite that attempt at political and economic baby-splitting, the door is now open to more such claims.

GITI Tire (USA) Ltd., a member of the American Coalition for Free Trade in Tires, already has sent out its official statement of disappointment.

“This decision will cost many more American jobs than it will create,” said Vic DeIorio, GITI’s executive vice president. “It will also increase costs for, and take away choices from, American consumers.”

With the tariff, experts believe that no[t] only will the tire companies seek cheap labor in other countries like Vietnam and Indonesia, but that more American jobs – particularly in the retail end of the tire industry — will be lost overall.

Professor Tom Prusa, of Rutg[e]rs University, completed a study to evaluate how many jobs would be saved as a result of the tariffs. The answer was none. In fact, he beli[e]ves that up to 20,000 jobs in related tire industries will now be lost as result.

Section 421 of the trade law under which the tariff will be imposed, was created as a concession to get China into the World Trade Organization.

Irwin Steltzer points out the meeting of world leaders in Pittsburgh next week has just gotten a whole lot more interesting:

[W]hen the leaders meet in Pittsburgh on September 24-25 the last thing President Obama wants is a discussion of his position on trade. He has so far managed to talk the talk of free trade while walking the protectionist walk that appeals to his trade union backers. He would like to keep it that way. Unfortunately for him, he won’t be able to do that, having just come down on the side of the protectionists…

…So picture this. Obama now has to play host to a very angry Chinese President Hu Jintao, among other world leaders, in Pittsburgh, to all of whom he promised not to repeat the beggar-thy-neighbor protectionist policies that extended the Great Depression. He needs the Chinese to continue buying the IOUs he is pouring onto the market to cover the deficits he is running up, and to allow their currency to appreciate relative to the sinking dollar. Hu needs export-based jobs. The Obama charm might just not be enough to send the Chinese president home in a generous mood, or disinclined to continue his ruminations on how to free the world of the dominance of the dollar.

Obama’s decision on tires makes it clear that he has no intention of supporting efforts to revive the almost 8-year-old Doha trade-opening negotiations. Some 36 nations met in New Delhi earlier this month and professed interest in completing a deal by the end of next year. Not likely: the recession has made jobs, jobs, jobs politicians’ central concern, and few are prepared to take the flak that will surely arise if they open their markets, and expose even a few domestic companies or farmers to job-destroying competition. The talks collapsed in July of 2008 precisely for that reason. Obama has been sitting on proposals for bilateral free trade agreements with Colombia and Korea, among others, and sees no reason to antagonize the strong, protectionist wing of his party, already unhappy with his failure — so far – to throw his weight behind a bill that would end the secret ballot in union-recognition elections, and require compulsory arbitration when union-management negotiations break down.

Obama and Neosyndicalism

It is finally sinking in: Fundamental structural change is what Barack Obama and his merry band of Czars have in mind for America. But what particular label to put on that change remains controversial.

The right initially opposed Obama, and the left supported him, on the mistaken belief that he is a socialist. His green jobs czar openly described himself as a communist, and Obama himself was mentored as a youngster by Frank Marshall Davis, a member of the CPUSA. Some media arms of both the right and left are now describing Obama’s authoritarian corporatist proclivities as fascism.

Mussolini described fascism as, “Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State”. Not entirely differing from Obama except that in Obama’s case, he seems to despise the particular state he wishes to rule.

The left has disparaged conservatives as Fascists for the last 50 years or so. And while Fritzsche describes fascism as right-wing populism, originally the word in Italian political history stretches back to the 1890s in the form of fasci, which were radical leftistpolitical factions that proliferated in the decades before World War I. The adoption of this term by the Fascist Party reflected the previous involvement of a number of many fascists in radical left politics.

But in practice Mussolini, whom we now most associate with fascism, held labor in a subservient position to the corporations. In Barack Obama’s America, labor’s new prominence stands in strong contrast. In the later nineteenth century, when socialism and communism were vying to revolutionize life, a third almost forgotten strain of thought found idealistic adherents: Syndicalism.

Syndicalism, for those not familiar, is one of three ~isms that flourished in the latter part of the nineteenth century, as models of revolutionary economies to replace the existing order. Syndicalism relies on trade unions which exchange goods among each other as the basis of social and economic structure. The local syndicat communicates with other syndicats through the bourse de travail (labor exchange), which handles management and the transfer of commodities.

Syndicalism was soon overshadowed by the violent radical anarcho-syndicalists, and has never lasted long when tried.

But it does sound a bit like the way Obama and the Democrats want to set up a “Health Care Exchange” does it not? Considering the key role labor unions played in getting him into power, the favored treatment the UAW has received in the GM bankruptcy, including taxpayer billions for retirement benefits better than most Americans receive, and the massive expansion of the SEIU to come, when it organizes health care workers in giant new government-run bureaucracies, the argument for something called neosyndicalism gets stronger.

Syndicalism has a few alterations from the loins of which it emerged. Both socialism and communism (in practice, if not in theory) are centered on the nation state as the primary entity shaping policies. Syndicalism revolves around extra-national trade union groups. With Obama’s internationalist outlook and his outreach to Islam, a non-state actor in the world, and his visible political alliance with another non-state actor, General Electric, a multinational corporation, Obama’s policies can fairly be said to have a neosyndicalist shading.

His selection a vast array of internationalists in an ever growing multitude of czar positions is another indicator. Perhaps most starkly depicting Obama’s global redistribution aims is his only bill authored as a U.S. senator, the Global Poverty Act (S.2433) which would allow the U.N. to set foreign assistance levels to come out of American coffers. In effect, making the U.S. Treasury as the de facto slush-fund of U.N. largesse.

It is all too easy to get caught up in the intricacies of all the various “isms.” What is crystal clear is their commonality of using collectivist priorities in an effort to stamp out any vestige of individualism.

Hypocrisy and double standards on Obama faith-

based programs

Thomas Lifson

Mollie Ziegler Hemingway of Christianity Today pens a wonderful essay in the Wall Street Journal on the remarkable media and activist double standards when it comes to the faith-based programs launched by President Bush, and continued by President Obama. Under the program, religious organizations may receive federal funds to carry out social programs.

When Bush launched the program, the media and activists screamed about the dangers of government money going to religious organizations. But now that Obama is in office, the concerns have abated, even though the programs remain in place. All that is different is the people giving out and receiving the funds.

Barry Lynn, the sanctimonious spokesman for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State has lost all credibility. He should be laughed off the stage from now on when he poses as a serious critic of church-state ties:

Barry Lynn, head of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, was a vocal critic of Mr. Bush’s faith-based office. Now, under Mr. Obama, he serves on the advisory council’s task force to improve the functioning of the office. Explaining his turnaround, he said he doesn’t view Mr. Obama’s office as partisan — the way Mr. Bush’s was. But acknowledging that there was no substantive difference between the offices yet, Mr. Lynn said: “We have a guarded optimism that when the advisory council, Justice and the White House act and get down to the nitty gritty, they will make this a constitutionally protected program. However, we have no proof of that and no guarantee.”

David Kaiser is a respected historian whose published works have covered a broad range of topics, from European Warfare to American League Baseball. Born in 1947, the son of a diplomat, Kaiser spent his childhood in three capital cities: Washington D.C. , Albany , New York , and Dakar , Senegal .. He attended Harvard University , graduating there in 1969 with a B.A. in history. He then spent several years more at Harvard, gaining a PhD in history, which he obtained in 1976. He served in the Army Reserve from 1970 to 1976.

He is a professor in the Strategy and Policy Department of the United States Naval War College. He has previously taught at Carnegie Mellon, Williams College and Harvard University . Kaiser’s latest book, The Road to Dallas, about the Kennedy assassination, was just published by Harvard University Press.

Dr. David Kaiser

History Unfolding

I am a student of history. Professionally, I have written 15 books on history that have been published in six languages, and I have studied history all my life. I have come to think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is simply a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes these exist, but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus.

Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about ten to fifteen years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.

We demand and then codify into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people we know they can never pay back? Why?

We learned just days ago that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has “loaned” two trillion dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom or why or disclose the terms. That is our money. Yours and mine. And that is three times the $700 billion we all argued about so strenuously just this past September. Who has this money? Why do they have it? Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I thought this was a government of “we the people,” who loaned our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not.

We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy.. Why?

We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why we are exceptional, and why we are worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, school boards continue to back mediocrity. Why?

We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (violently in California over a proposition that is so controversial that it simply wants marriage to remain defined as between one man and one woman. Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?) We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana republic. To what purpose?

Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, social security is nearly bankrupt, as is Medicare and our entire government. Our education system is worse than a joke (I teach college and I know precisely what I am talking about) – the list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth.. It is potentially 1929 x ten…And we are at war with an enemy we cannot even name for fear of offending people of the same religion, who, in turn, cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.

And finally, we have elected a man that no one really knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla , Alaska . All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him, drip by drip, is unsettling if not downright scary (Surely you have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a mandatory civilian defense force stronger than our military for use inside our borders? No? Oh, of course. The media would never play that for you over and over and then demand he answer it. Sarah Palin’s pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe are more important.)

Mr. Obama’s winning platform can be boiled down to one word: Change. Why?

I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now.

This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.

And that is only the beginning..

As a serious student of history, I thought I would never come to experience what the ordinary, moral German must have felt in the mid-1930s In those times, the “savior” was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing. What they should have known was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory. Conservative “losers” read it right now.

And there were the promises. Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and frowned and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his “brown shirts” would bully and beat them into submission. Which they did – regularly. And then, he was duly elected to office, while a full-throttled economic crisis bloomed at hand – the Great Depression. Slowly, but surely he seized the controls of government power, person by person, department by department, bureaucracy by bureaucracy. The children of German citizens were at first, encouraged to join a Youth Movement in his name where they were taught exactly what to think. Later, they were required to do so. No Jews of course,

How did he get people on his side? He did it by promising jobs to the jobless, money to the money-less, and rewards for the military-industrial complex. He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once again in the country, across Europe , and across the world. He did it with a compliant media – did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and …. . .. change. And the people surely got what they voted for.

If you think I am exaggerating, look it up. It’s all there in the history books.

So read your history books. Many people of conscience objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and ridiculed. When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though. And the world came to regret that he was not listened to.

Do not forget that Germany was the most educated, the most cultured country in Europe. It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities. And yet, in less than six years (a shorter time span than just two terms of the U. S. presidency) it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors against neighbors.. All with the best of intentions, of course. The road to Hell is paved with them.

As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I can hope I am wrong by closing my eyes, having another latte, and ignoring what is transpiring around me..

I choose to believe the evidence. No doubt some people will scoff at me, others laugh, or think I am foolish, naive, or both. To some degree, perhaps I am. But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe-and why I believe it.

I pray I am wrong. I do not think I am. Perhaps the only hope is our vote in the next elections.